Dao House... Therapeutic Dao

Dao House...

Therapeutic Dao

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Tao Living

Basics

www.truetao.org/living/

Laozi

Archived columns by Derek Lin, from 1999 to the present. Thought-provoking, charming essays and parables on practical/therapeutic aspects of Daoism, many in both English and French.

Zhuangzi

Metaphysics

"The point of this story is especially important to those of us who are on the path of cultivation. If we feel superior for having learned the lesson of humility, well... we really haven't learned anything at all!" [From "The Tall Hat"]

Tools of Taoist Thought

Alchemy

www.centertao.org/correlations.php

Practical

The Center for Taoist Thought and Fellowship (Santa Cruz, CA) introduces a method for moving beyond duality in our thought patterns, using correlations to interpret words differently. Continued here.

Therapeutic

Political

Art

"Ultimately, this process nibbles away at innate genetic based biases and contradictions...The contradictory, albeit subconscious, use of language allows you to deceive yourself. If you do correlations carefully, you just can't help but become more intellectually honest."

Characteristics of the self-actualized person: Visions From the East and West

Resources

http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-ADM/chang.htm

In this journal article, Raylene Chang compares Dao and Zen views to theories of Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow and finds congruent elements.

"According to Rogers, the fully functioning person has a peaceful mind, is free, and is well integrated. These people experience psychological equilibrium because they act in a way that is harmonious with an internal actualizing principle... The sage of Taoism, too, is said to live in a state of tranquility, simplicity, genuineness, and reserve."

Daoistic Humanism in Ancient China

www.freewebs.com/aroninphilosopher/taoistichumanism.htm

2003 journal article by Yueh-Ting Lee (Minnesota State University, Ethnic Studies) discusses principles of Daoism in a humanist context and gives an overview of humanist psychologists influenced by Daoism. From the Po Man's Tao site.

"If Westerners tend to see humans as the center of all things or above all things, and humans can conquer almost everything... then in an Eastern sense man is in harmony with other people and things, and a human or humanistic behavior is part of Dao and nature."

Taoism and Self-Actualization

www.meta-religion.com/World_Religions/Taoism/taoism_and_self.htm

Gary S. Toub (Jungian Analyst, Denver) uses the tenets of Daoism - "fasting the mind, embracing the opposites, and becoming useless" - as therapeutic tools. From Cassiel Sophia's Metareligion site.

"In dealing with their suffering, most of my clients must begin by discarding their previous identity built around being useful, and rediscover what it means to really be themselves."

Fasting the Mind

www.4therapy.com/consumer/life_topics/item.php?uniqueid=6330

More from Gary S. Toub, on keeping an open mind and heart.

"It is tempting to categorize and pigeonhole psychotherapy clients, to preprogram my thinking about them and the techniques I should use... However, the Taoists are pointing out that all this planning and theorizing gets in the way of being fully present to the reality of the moment and the individuality of the human being I am with."

The Farther Reaches of Human Nature

www.adolphus.nl/xcrpts/xcmaslow.html

Lengthy excerpts from Abraham Maslow's 1971 book on self-actualizing persons and the societal conditions that foster them. From Dolf Hartsuiker's bibliography for his book Sadhus, Holy Men of India.

"Counseling is not concerned with training or with molding or with teaching in the ordinary sense of telling people what to do and how to do it. It is not concerned with propaganda. It is a Taoistic uncovering and then helping. Taoistic means the non-interfering, the 'letting be'..."

A View of the Good Life

www.the-intuitive-self.org/website/author/memoir/supplements/view_good_life.html

Bill Taggart, intuition consultant, provides excerpts from Carl Rogers's On Becoming a Person, interspersed with his own comments relating Rogers's message to "alignment with the Tao." See also Taggart's account of his own self-exploration, "Reconciling Opposites," in which Daoist principles and images played a role.

"Astounding! A contemporary Western psychotherapist comes to the same resolution of the human predicament as the great Eastern sage Lao Tzu."

"Britain on the Couch"

www.bgmi.us/web/bdavey/OliverJames.htm

Brian Davey's long, critical analysis of Oliver James's book Britain on the Couch (and the whole mental health system), in the form of a letter to James, which begins, "You may recall that, at the time our paths separated, you were beginning your training to become a therapist and I was going mad." Daoism doesn't come into it until near the end, but Daoist ideas suffuse the work.

"There is another Taoist saying which I like very much - also in the Tao Te Ching somewhere that 'Too much success is not an advantage' which I think partly explains the misery of 'successful' people... successful people often stop learning because they are only surrounded by admirers and so never see the world from any other point of view than their own."

Field of Dreams ~An Interview with Arnold Mindell

www.sonic.net/~billkirn/mindell_interview.html

Stephan Bodian interviews the Jungian therapist Mindell, who speaks of the "dreambody - the unconscious as an active agent constantly expressing itself in our lives." From Bill Kirn's site on Process Oriented Psychology.

"Everyone is a Taoist at heart. Everyone would like to follow nature, but we don't have enough tools yet to put the philosophy into practice... as soon as someone gets sick, they fight the illness, rather than trying to find out the meaning or purpose behind it."

A Conversation with Arnold Mindell

www.sonic.net/~billkirn/conwmdl.htm

Mindell interviewed by The Monthly Aspectarian. His psychotherapeutic approach draws on Daoist principles.

"Frequently we're asked to come in when the Tao is conflict and crisis. We encourage people to let that Tao happen and not repress it. Especially in new age circles, people just hate conflict and try to repress it."

Process Work Theory and History

www.aamindell.net/process-work-history.htm

Outline of process work fundamentals, from Amy and Arny Mindell's website.

"In our minds, an important 'metaskill' in all deeper, ongoing work is 'following' ourselves and the sense of the Tao, that is events which are observable and/or intuited. The mystical side of process work follows things that cannot be quite said..."

Anima and Animus

www.lessons4living.com/anima_and_animus.htm

Psychologist Dan Johnston (Macon, GA) relates the Jungian concepts of anima and animus to yin and yang. From his Lessons for Living site.

"In regard to psychological functioning, men are predominantly yang but contain a yin aspect. Women, while predominantly yin, contain an element of yang. Thus human beings are psychologically androgynous with latent inner masculine and feminine energies awaiting development."

The Evolution of a Jungian Shaman: A Conversation with David H. Rosen

www.cddc.vt.edu/host/weishaus/Interv/rosen.htm

Interview by Joel Weishaus of David Rosen, psychiatrist, Texas A&M professor, and author of The Tao of Jung and other books.

"Darkness, whether in mood or in night, is natural. So if we flow with the black bile of melancholia and endure the terrible darkness of depression, eventually we will break through into the light of joy. This is the Tao (the Way) of darkness or depression--this is the Mystery of its evolution."

C G Jung and the Alchemical Renewal

www.gnosis.org/jung_alchemy.htm

1988 journal article by Stephan A. Hoeller (College of Oriental Studies, Los Angeles) on Jung's psychological rendition of ancient alchemical lore. One section discusses "Richard Wilhelm and the Chinese Connection."

"Although the ancient Taoists postulated that the quest for immortality was the central work of alchemy, their "Golden Flower" of immortality is not substantially different from the "Stone of the Philosophers," which is the supreme objective of Western practitioners of the Great Art."

Consciousness and Reality

www.meta-religion.com/Psychiatry/Analytical_psychology/consciousness_and_reality.htm

This think piece by Jorge Aveleira, author of The Blue Egg: A Subtle Encounter with Reality, offers "A stable-dynamic model based on Jungian psychology" and "Taoist yin-yang polarity." To read more about Jung's four functions, check this page from Michael Daniels (John Liverpool Moores University, UK).

"The fact that the yang rational nature is represented by yang Thinking and yin Feeling, and that the yin non-rational nature is represented by yang Perception and yin Intuition follows strictly the Taoist logic. Yin and yang constitute the basic polarity of every whole..."

Tao of Communication and the Constancy of Change

http://ayeconference.com/Articles/Taocommunicationchange.html

Conference presentation by Jean McLendon (Satir Systems, Chapel Hill, NC) finds congruences between Laozi and family therapy pioneer Virginia Satir. Uses Gia Fu Feng's translation of Laozi to illustrate Satir's "Six A's" of change: awareness, acceptance, authorship, articulation, application, and activism.

"The Parts Party is a powerful vehicle for identifying our parts and integrating them into the person we want to become. Lao Tsu also recognized the impact of dividing the whole and the need for integration. He adds: 'When the whole is divided, the parts need names' (Chapter 32). Many people are familiar with this part of the quote. But, his attention to the step of integration lies in the trailer sentence, which fewer recall: 'there are already enough names.'"

Poeticotherapy: Freud, Heidegger and Laotzu

www.thomehfang.com/suncrates3/9poetico.htm

1986 conference presentation by scholars Suncrates (George C. H. Sun) and James W. Kidd. Laozi as a bridge between Freud's conception of creative work as an expression of the universal unconscious, and Heidegger's conception of it as a revelation of Being. From the Comprehensive Harmony International Journal site.

"How to release the most basic, the creative, the constructive in the person is a central experience of psychotherapy that can be further corroborated by what we choose to term specifically as poeticotherapy. For it is chiefly with the will to expression, to creation, to meaning and to fulfillment that any form of therapy is concerned."

Life Cultivation

http://taoism21cen.tripod.com/lifecultivation.html

Chapter from the 2005 book A New Interpretation of Chinese Philosophy, by You-Sheng Li (Taoist Recovery Center, Ontario). It's a matter of cultivating inner peace, which boils down to five precepts. [Popup alert.]

"1. Pursue a Simple and Happy Life... 2. Keep in Touch with Nature... 3. Transcendence of the Negative Effects of Life... 4. Meditation... 5. Try to Harmonize Your Social Circle According to Taoist Principles."

Love's Way: The Tao of Love

www.isleofavalon.co.uk/health/taolove.html

Ella and Andy Portman (Glastonbury, UK) call on the power of Dao for transforming relationships and sexuality. Includes sample cases and a meditation.

"The complexity of our habitual responses to feeling a lack of love can be cut through by a simple commitment to opening to the way of love. The age old separation of love and sex is bridged, and when the sexually charged yin and yang energies of sex dance in the unitary nature of love, we are flowing with the Tao at the heart of creation."

A Guide to Taoist Parenting

www.centertao.org/letterstoandy.php?l=guidetoparenting

Carl Abbott (Center for Taoist Thought and Fellowship, Santa Cruz, CA) sets forth his principles.

"The catalyst for this essay was the showing of our 'Trading Spouses' adventure. When the surrogate mother saw how harmonious our family was, it baffled her... She could only conclude that I had somehow 'brain washed' them or had some mysterious 'control' over them."

The Yin Way

www.khaldea.com/rudhyar/aoft/aoft_c1_s3_p1.shtml

By psycho-spiritual astrologer Dane Rudhyar (1895-1985). One of "Two Basic Ways of Meeting Life's Confrontations," from his 1980 online book The Astrology of Transformation, available through the Rudhyar Archival Project.

"Becoming sharply aware of the physical place toward which this [aggressive] act is aimed, the student swiftly moves away from it, and the attack, finding only empty space, extends itself into a 'nothing' that forces the attacker into an over-extended and out-of-balance position. The energy of the attack is used, as it were, to suck the attacker into a void where his strength becomes the power that defeats him and makes him fall... One does not resist the act, one accepts it and turns it against the attacker by refusing to be involved in it - thus by opposing to it only an inner void of response, by not being there (physically and/or morally and psychically) at the place where the attack is aimed."

How to Overcome Without Fighting: An Introduction to the Taoist Approach to Conflict Resolution

www.vl-site.org/taoism/resolve.html

Journal article by Key Sun (Central Washington University, Law and Justice) approaches the Daodejing and The Art of War as guidebooks for human interaction.

"According to Taoism, a person in a conflict situation may minimize the dissension by using alternatives that can transcend or invalidate the perceptions or expectations of the opponent who exacerbates the situation."

The Straight Path that Wanders: A Taoist Approach to Ethical Decision Making

www.fivespirits.com/training_ethics.php

Essay by Lorie Eve Dechar (alchemical acupuncturist, NY) presents her "heart-centered approach" based on Daoist principles.

"The Heart's message may come as a shock, a sudden insight that jolts you out of reverie. It may come slowly, gradually over time, like water dripping on a stone. The Heart may speak to you in the voice of another human being, a lover or a stranger who offers you an insight you've been searching for. Or it may come in the form of a tic or a tightness, an irritating physical symptom that won't let you alone until suddenly, with a sob or a laugh, you realize what your body is telling you."

Applying TCM Principles to Western Psychotherapy

http://qi-journal.com/Qigong.asp?-token.SearchID=Applying%20TCM

Article by Joseph E. Scanion (Counseling Center of Georgetown, SC) on combining physical and mental health modalities (e.g., qigong and taijiquan) to treat the whole person. From Qi: The Journal of Traditional Eastern Health and Fitness.

"Stagnant qi in the body can take many forms. It is necessary to discharge or drain stagnant qi in order to replace it with healthy qi. Just as lesions or infection or other 'physical' manifestations of illness can block the healthy flow of energy, fear, anger and other potentially negative emotions can also block the healthy flow of energy."

Depression and the Five Elements

www.acupuncture.com/conditions/depression.htm

Stephanie Schneider-Guild (acupuncturist, NY) describes symptoms of depression and treatment implications for each element. Written for acupuncturists.

"Becoming aware that a patient is depressed does not suffice. It is important to understand and address the individual and unique manifestations of that person's depression. The five elements provide a clear and interesting framework in which many cases of depressive illness can fit, be diagnosed and treated."

Chinese Herbal Prozac: Depression and Traditional Chinese Medicine

www.acupuncture.com/herbs/herbprozac.htm

Brian Benjamin Carter (acupuncturist, writer, speaker) proposes an alternative to antidepressant drugs.

"Cortex Albizzia Julbrissin (mimosa tree bark) is a TCM herb in the 'Nourish the Heart and Calm the Spirit' category. It is traditionally used to calm the spirit and relieve emotional constraint when the associated symptoms of bad temper, depression, insomnia, irritability and poor memory are present."

Tao of Bodywork

www.massagetherapy.com/articles/index.php/article_id/537

Article by James Sullivan (Alexander School of Natural Therapeutics, Tacoma, WA) asserts that bodywork is not for healing the body alone, but body, mind, and spirit.

"Our society stresses activities which develop the ego, but do little to develop one's true nature. What comes of the imbalance is a fragmented person. This may manifest as self-destructive behaviors, spiritual crisis, mid-life crisis or anti-social behavior. Another Taoist sage, Chuang-Tzu, said 'You got lost and are trying to find your way back to your own true self.'"

The Tango Lesson and the Tango Principle

http://alexandertechnique.com/articles2/tango/

Nickolas Knightly draws on the teachings of Laozi and Martin Buber to promote the Alexander Technique, which teaches us how to "dance through the storms of life."

"Lao-tzu also wants us to give up doing and instead follow non-doing. We are built to dance with Life and to BE Life's Dance. Unfortunately, we lose this elegant simplicity, and we become doers."

Lieh Tzu, On Dreams

http://sacred-texts.com/tao/tt/tt06.htm

The dream fables of Liezi, translated by Lionel Giles (1912). How the early Daoists saw dreams - as illusion, as compensation, as reality, as "awakening."

"Can any number of changes, or successive intervals of fast and slow, fully represent the true scheme of things?"

From the Butterfly's Dream to the Ascension to the Realm of Eternal Wandering

http://chinesestudies.tripod.com/ivascu.html

2001 article by Irina Ivascu (Radio Bucharest), from The Romanian Journal of Chinese Studies, draws "A Parallel between Liezi and Zhuangzi." A philosophical analysis of what Liezi and Zhuangzi meant by their dream parables. [Popup alert]

"Dreaming and awakening, as well as life and death, are to be regarded as equal in rank. Both modalities of existence have to be lived at their utmost."

Dream Yoga

www.natural-connection.com/resource/yoga_journal/dream_yoga.html

Article by writer Peter Ochiogrosso from the Yoga Journal discusses esoteric dream practices in a variety of Eastern traditions. Includes a section on "Taoist Dreaming" (scroll mid-way down).

"Taoist dream practice, called True Dream, Dream Wandering, or Night Practice, employs sleep and dream as a form of meditation."

Introduction to Dreamhealing: Chaos and the Creative Consciousness Process

http://asklepia.tripod.com/Dreamhealing/Dreamhealing.html

The introduction to a 10-chapter book by Graywolf Fred Swinney and Iona Miller, with a foreward by Stanley Krippner, put online (the whole book!) by the Asklepia Foundation. The focus is on shamanistic psychotherapy and chaos theory, but the intro sets forth "A Taoist Philosophy of Treatment" in some detail (second half of page). [Popup alert]

"The typical themes and premises of Taoism share much in common with shamanism, Gestalt therapy, Maslow's concepts of self-actualization and peak experience, and modern chaos theory. They hold in common the principle of harmonization with nature. They manifest as existential philosophy, nature mystic experiences, and process-oriented therapy."

Playing with the Clouds: The Foundations of Taoist Dream Practices

www.tao-yoga.com/deutsch/artikel2.htm

Juan Li, who conducts classes for Mantak Chia's enterprise, presents a sort of dream alchemy process for remaining conscious in the dream state. (Note: This is not "aimed at working with ordinary dreams arising from unresolved emotional states or poor energy circulation.")

"...Taoist dream practices have nothing to do with dream interpretation. The ability to remain conscious in dream state is for learning to play in the dimensions without time and space."

On Being Lucid, No Longer Dreaming, In the Waking State

www.artezine.com/archive/20010615/chuangtzu.htm

Barry Fishman suggests that we imagine our life as a dream. From Artezine - A Cyberspace Review of the Arts.

"Chuang Tzu dreamt he was a butterfly... How can we really 'wake up'; how can we become aware of our actions, change our condition, whether we're 'dreaming-awake' or 'dreaming-asleep'?

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